


Smithcraft

by khilari



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Brothers, Community: norsekink, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-17
Updated: 2012-11-17
Packaged: 2017-11-18 20:31:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khilari/pseuds/khilari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hammers can create as well as destroy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smithcraft

When they were young the princes took up craft to learn their weapons. Loki carved wood and ivory with a deft touch, knife going from fumbling to flashing in his hand while Thor still felt he was struggling to wind up with anything but cracked metal. For him deftness took longer, learning to wield a hammer with precision as well as strength, to judge when the metal was under as much strain as it could take and must be annealed. Loki did not watch his progress, claiming to hate the heat of the forges. Gradually Thor managed to produce things with some semblance of polish. A copper bowl he presented, with some embarrassment, to Frigga. A dagger he gave to Sif.

Then, when he came of age, he was ready for Mjolnir, and it was no longer metal that cracked beneath his hammer.

*

It was after he became King, when responsibility felt heavy on him, that he took up smithing again. Loki, reconciled but awkwardly so, was his advisor, alternately remorseful and showing flashes of old bitterness but always suggesting things in Asgard’s best interest. Smithing gave Thor a retreat, a task that he could throw himself into with nothing at stake but a weapon or a bracelet. It retaught him old lessons too, that things would break under constant pressure and needed to be tended.

‘Are you avoiding me?’ Loki asked. ‘Staying somewhere so hot?’

‘Nay, brother. I just wish to make something,’ Thor said, rubbing his head sheepishly. ‘And you could keep cool if you wished.’

Thor hadn’t expected Loki to wander into the forge, blue and coated faintly with frost beneath his green robe, next time he worked. He smiled, and handed Loki the bracelet he had been polishing.

‘You are strange sometimes,’ Loki told him, but he put it on.

*

In time Thor grew into kingship. There were battles, inevitable and unavoidable after centuries, and the forge became a refuge from more than worry. He never made weapons anymore. Loki still watched, his Jotun form had changed with age and he had horns now, decked in gold rings that he only ever wore within Thor’s forge.

More and more this was where they were themselves.


End file.
